


Shadows on the Stars

by SarurunKamui



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gen, Post-Game(s), Psychological Trauma, more to come maybe?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4190394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarurunKamui/pseuds/SarurunKamui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucina helped to save the world from Grima's return, but her role at the head of the battle and direct confrontations with the fell dragon's might have taken their toll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows on the Stars

_“The future is built upon the past,”_ said the night. _“And your kind will never live to see it.”_

Red light grew from behind her, covering Falchion like blood. Lucina turned around as quickly as she could without losing balance. She struggled to maintain her stance. Her firmly planted legs wanted to run, and the hands supporting the sword before her shook like leaves in the wind. Three red lights rose in the night. Three red eyes, staring at her.

_“Your mother and father are dead, tiny one. And now it is your turn…”_

The darkness screamed, and Lucina could not move. A divine dragon’s fang was the only thing between her and death. She held onto Falchion for her life. But Grima came so fast, and its body filled the sky, and then she felt nothing but wind carrying the scent of decay, and Falchion was gone, and she was screaming, and her voice was as a void, a yawning quiet, and so was everything else–

–

She woke up gasping for breath.

Silver moonlight filtered onto her bed through white curtains drifting before an open window. The world was silent, but her mind was filled with the clamor of ragged breath and a red glow upon leaden darkness. It was pushing her down, crushing her—

 _Falchion._ She grabbed for the sword leaning by her bed and her eyes turned back to reality, holding on to the calm warm gleam of the scabbard. She grabbed it and held it close, old metal and leather a balm to her shaking hands. She stroked its smooth-worn edges, hefting its familiar weight into her lap. Her breathing was slowing. She focused on the freshness of the air flowing into her lungs and let it fill her. Slow and steady. There.

She could think now. She still couldn’t entirely shake off the fear of imminent death; adrenaline was still making her veins tingle, but she was coming back to reality. But that sensation of crushing weight, of being unable to move, of absolute helplessness—

“Grima is dead,” Lucina whispered. “Grima… is dead.” She tried to picture the world outside, the world that Falchion’s power had preserved. Serene moonlight over glittering waters, a diamond sky filled with stars, black stains where inky silhouettes of trees rose into the horizon. A clear, cool darkness, a time of sleep and peace for all of Ylisse.

“Grima is dead.” She continued to mutter her mantra to herself, rocking back and forth with Naga’s blade clutched to her chest. She had learned to repeat this over and over on nights like this, ever since the fell dragon’s defeat more than a month before. But visions of the future continued to haunt her, and now that the fighting was over, there was nothing to hold them back.

Grima was dead to the world, but not to her mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't watch that cutscene without imagining sheer horror and abject fear running through Lucina's mind. I can't listen to the kids' stories of the blighted future and believe that they wouldn't be traumatized by what they witnessed, especially Lucina who put herself at the forefront of it all by wielding Falchion. 
> 
> Lucina totally reads as autistic to me and I'm rolling with that here. It might help to explain some of her behaviors, especially later if I continue this fic. I want to explore that aspect of her, combined with trauma and the sort of emotional Pyrrhic victory I imagine the war cost her.


End file.
